The classic Don Henley song that was rejected by Tom Petty
For decades, Mike Campbell was Tom Petty‘s right-hand man. Together, they were a songwriting powerhouse. Whenever Campbell came up with an idea for a track, Petty would always be his first port of call, even though he worked with other artists alongside The Heartbreakers, such as Stevie Nicks. However, Petty was his boss, and his say was final.
In 1983, Petty and Campbell were working on the album Southern Accents, which they originally envisioned as a concept record which meant The Heartbreakers needed to work with a strict remit. Even if they wrote exceptional songs, if the material didn’t fall in line with the heartland rock theme of the LP, then they didn’t have a home on Southern Accents. Therefore, many tracks which would have almost certainly made the cut on other records by the group were, in the end, faced with the cut.
One of the best examples of this approach is ‘The Boys Of Summer’, a track which Campbell wrote intending to be used for The Heartbreakers. However, after Petty turned the number down, he remained focussed on wanting the song to be released and began looking for an artist to adopt his creation. Although he’d never met Don Henley from Eagles, the song somehow found its way to him and became a hit thanks to producer Jimmy Iovine.
Iovine worked closely with The Heartbreakers and was friends with Henley, which is how the song ended up in the grasp of the Eagles frontman. Although Henley had already embarked on a successful solo career, he wasn’t a prolific songwriter and needed assistance in that department which is how word spread to Campbell. “I used to have a 4-track machine in my house, and I had just gotten a drum machine – it’s when the Roger Linn drum machine first came out. I was playing around with that and came up with a rhythm,” The Heartbreakers guitarist told SongFacts. “I made the demo on my little 4-track, and I showed it to Tom, but at the time, the record we were working on, Southern Accents, it didn’t really sound like anything that would fit into the album. The producer we were working with at the time, Jimmy Iovine, called me up one day and said he had spoken with Don, who I’d never met, and said that he was looking for songs.”
He continued: “He gave me his number, and I called him up and played it for him, and he called me the next day and said he put it on in his car and had written these words and wanted to record it. That’s kind of how it started. Basically, he wanted to recreate the demo as close as we could. We ended up changing the key for the voice. We actually cut it in one key, did the whole record with overdubs and everything, and then he decided to change the key like a half step up or something, we had to do the whole record again, but it turned out pretty good.”
‘The Boys Of Summer’ was a hit for Henley, who made it the lead single from his second album, Building the Perfect Beast, and added lyrics to the track. The song ultimately charted on both sides of the Atlantic and won a Grammy for ‘Best Male Rock Vocal Performance’.
